Remembering JFK Jr.

Shortly after I became editor of High Times, I got a report from my news editor Steve Bloom that JFK Jr. had stopped by the High Times booth at a rave the previous night. I always felt a strange connection with John, especially after he became editor of a national magazine shortly after I attained that same title at a much different publication. We were both publishing deep political investigations at the same time, the major difference being his magazine struggled, while High Times transformed into the publishing success story of the decade (just by re-orienting it away from cocaine and towards marijuana).

Like most people, I didn’t suspect foul play initially in John’s death. I believed the lies about him being a bad pilot and flying in bad weather conditions. In actuality, he had the safest and most sophisticated plane on the market. And he never flew without a co-pilot. The most suspicious thing about the accident was the 15-hour delay in organizing a search, and the failure to find the plane instantly considering it carried a crash-proof beacon. The wikipedia page on the incident is a joke. It wasn’t until I saw John Hankey’s video many years later that I realized I’d been duped. Now I realize I was double-duped as Hankey turns out to be an incredibly inaccurate source of information, just another propaganda disinfo artist, no doubt. But that’s the way these things usually work: the first to arrive on the scene of a major conspiracy with real information is usually the appointed lightning rod whose real mission is to connect as many false dots into the story as possible, all of which emanate from a single scrap of legitimate information. Connecting dots that don’t connect is the name of the game.

I find it sad how little celebrated JFK Jr is today. I believed he represented a true chance at a political messiah to crush the Octopus that runs the world banking system, but that’s probably why they eliminated him. And most cruelly, they took out his wife as well, and her sister, and possibly his unborn child.

The real facts are: immediately after JFK Jr’s plane radioed the tower at Martha’s Vineyard, it went into a steep dive into the water. There really is no explanation for this maneuver, other than he had a co-pilot who was committing suicide, and that, essentially, is Hankey’s story and I have to agree with the basic outline, although I refuse to follow him into the rabbit holes as to who, why and when or pay any attention to his bombastic hyperbole. I think the Pentagon perceived him as a growing threat to longstanding plans for wars in the Middle East; and also as a formidable opponent to the Republican Party should he ever have decided to run for any public office.

Despite all the problems with the official story, all of which continues today, no one is even trying to bring justice forth, except, of course, for John Hankey. And that’s the way disinfo works. Meanwhile, today we had a story in the National Enquirer with the total non-scoop that the plane did a nose-dive into the water and not the spiral corkscrew of death they initially reported, so maybe there’s still hope additional facts will surface some day.

by Steven Hager

The first reporter to document hip hop and the instigator of the film Beat Street, Hager founded the Cannabis Cup, organized the first 420 ceremonies outside of Marin County, and launched the hemp movement with Jack Herer while writing some landmark conspiracy articles.